Firms warned over intellectual property

According to Le Ninh Giang, director of the centre for IP technology and application (IPTA), a lot of enterprises focused on forming businesses, calling for investment capital but not registering for any IP protection rights.

He noted that it comes as no surprise when he discovers cases where companies lost their IP assets in foreign countries when trading.

Cases concerning Phu Quoc fish sauce, Vinataba cigarettes or Buon Ma Thuot cafe were good examples of just some companies who have fallen foul of foreign IP regulations, Mr. Giang added.

He said, “Many business owners still don’t know about IP registration and they are not yet aware of the importance of protecting IPs when exporting their products. While multinational enterprises in the world have invested a lot of resources in registering IP, few local enterprises understand the importance of the issue.”

In many cases, Vietnamese enterprises invested a lot in their brands in the country, making their products known by local consumers, but when they went to the international market, they became anonymous or already lost their brands which were being registered by another foreign company.

Vu Thi Thuan, chairwoman of Traphaco said, “In the pharmaceutical industry, there are many creative values that need to be protected. However, the current understanding of IP protection in Vietnam is not yet sufficient, leading many businesses to potentially violate the law.

"For sustainable development and integration, local enterprises must firstly respect IP rights.”

In order to effectively implement commitments on IP with further integration to the international economy, lawyer Pham Duy Khuong, SB Law Firm said, “Vietnamese enterprises need a strategy for international trademark registration with good consideration for cost, time, quantity and country of registration.”

Khuong advised businesses to learn carefully about the register to save time, cost and bring the best effect to the trademark in a foreign country.

Lawyer Le Quang Vinh from BROSS & Partners Law Firm added, “If the enterprises don’t register for IP protection, they will lose export opportunities to expand their markets and will face with legal risks and lose many opportunities to benefit from free trade agreements like CPTPP, EVFTA, RCEP.

“If they discover that their IP rights have been lost, it is necessary to quickly research and collect evidence, file an objection and cancel or suspend the validity of the rights.”

At the same time, seeing the increasingly deepening international integration of Vietnam through the participation in the new generation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as well as the wave of the industrial revolution 4.0 and the trend of trade protection in the world, the National Office of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Science and Technology also organised a consultation workshop on the draft law to amend and supplement the current IP Law in Hanoi earlier this week.

It was expected that after this process, the law will have 18 chapters and 235 articles.